Budget 2021: Soft-target strategy as ALP assumes the defensive position

Less than 12 months ahead of a federal poll and Anthony Albanese has moved to a defensive political posture framed around a character assassination of Scott Morrison and a soft-target Labor policy strategy.

At this stage of the electoral cycle, this is a worrying sign for the opposition and a recognition of the realities the Labor leader faces with the power of incumbency weighing so heavily in the Prime Minister’s favour.

It reflects a lack of confidence in his ability to re-establish Labor as an alternative government as the Coalition continues to beat the pandemic drum.

The Labor leader’s budget reply speech appeared aimed principally at keeping Labor’s people in the tent while trying to undermine the integrity and competence of the government.

This is not an election-winning formula or an expression of conviction that Albanese has marked out a broad coalition of voters that he can appeal to in a time of crisis.

The centrepiece, a $10bn social housing program, may be noble in its intent but it is anti-aspirational in its messaging.

It symbolises a party that is equally if not more concerned about maintaining the guardianship of its own base than it is about winning over the voters it would need to return to government.

While the task facing Albanese was always going to be challenging, by his own admission this was his opportunity to present Labor’s vision for a post-­pandemic Australia.

That is not to say he has failed. In some ways, it appeals to the very fears that the Morrison government is also speaking to but from the other side of the fence.

The risk is that it will further undermine confidence in his leadership within his own party.

In Albanese’s defence, the best tactical response to Josh Frydenberg’s big spend was to throw some red meat to the Labor base in the acknowledgment that the attention span of voters for a budget reply speech is significantly more fleeting than for the budget itself.

While it may well be viewed as a missed opportunity for Albanese, it is also a recognition that there are arguments that he doesn’t need to have yet.

There was scant mention of the debt and deficit legacy that dwarfs that of Labor’s last term in office. There was no position on income tax policy and there was a decisive absence of substance on climate change policy.

But he also vacated the field in defence of small business owners, aspirational families and the ­regions — another clear indication Labor is more worried over quarantining a narrowing base rather than expanding its appeal.

At the heart of Albanese’s speech was a deeply personal attack on Morrison’s character as the member for Marrickville presented himself as the product of a disadvantaged upbringing — the son of a welfare-dependent single mother raised in a council flat.

This is Albanese presenting as a conviction politician based on lived experience, holding to a values system very distinct from that of Morrison.

It is hard to divorce Albanese’s key policy announcement from this story but equally questionable whether it has the potential to shift votes.

As virtuous as it is and creative in its adaptation — by using ­Future Fund oversight and debt to fund it — the social housing program would appear to appeal to a far narrower base than that which Albanese needs to engage to win an election.